Norman Bussel was born 2 October 1923 in Memphis, Tennessee. His father was in the grocery business. He attended the same high school that Elvis Presley would later attend and graduated in June 1941 at 17 years of age. He was anxious to get into the war, but his mother did not want him to. His father had served in World War One and tried to intercede with her for him but with no luck. He had to wait until he was drafted. He worked for Fisher Body [Annotator’s Note: Fisher Body Company, 1908-1916; Fisher Body Corporation 1916-1925; Fisher Body Division of General Motors, 1926-1984] manufacturing B-25 bombers in Memphis [Annotator’s Note: North American B-25 Mitchell]. The aircraft plant was a 24-hour operation and provided a lot of overtime due to trying to get the planes out. Bussel’s father had returned from World War One with shell shock, but nothing much was made of it. He and his father had a good relationship, but he did not talk about his war service. He had a sister who was born on his ninth birthday in 1932. He also had a baby brother born when he was 17–he took care of him quite often. His father had been 19 when he went into WWI and his whole company was made up of people from Memphis. Only 11 of them returned from the war. His father would get very emotional any time one of them would visit. Bussel could see what a major impact war had on their lives.

Norman Bussel worked building B-25 bombers [Annotator’s Note: North American B-25 Mitchell] at the Fisher Body plant [Annotator’s Note: Fisher Body Company, 1908-1916; Fisher Body Corporation 1916-1925; Fisher Body Division of General Motors, 1926-1984] in Memphis, Tennessee. He worked on the bombardier nose of the aircraft. It was very tough and sometimes dangerous work. He would often have aluminum shavings in his eyes that would require being picked out by nurses. Bussel was visiting relatives when heard about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio. He immediately knew he had to join in the effort. [Annotator’s Note: Dog barks and growls off-camera]. Enlistments overall went way up. Canada was already in the war and many Americans enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force before the US entered the war. Millington Naval Air Base Annotator’s Note: Naval Air Station Memphis, now Naval Support Activity Mid-South, United States Navy, Millington, Tennessee] was just outside of Memphis. His mother was against his enlisting but told him if he could pass the tests, she would sign the paperwork for him. He passed the tests, but she changed her mind and would not do it. He was attending Memphis State [Annotator’s Note: now University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee], but he quit after one semester and then went to work at Fisher Aircraft.

Norman Bussel was drafted and sent to Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia on a train that was really old. He arrived at two or three in the morning in a bad downpour. He was there for three days of testing and then went to Keesler Field, Mississippi for basic training. He had three years of ROTC [Annotator’s Note: Reserve Officers’ Training Corp] in high school so he was ordered to stay on after basic to teach new enlistees to march. He finally told them he did not want to do that any longer. Fortunately for Bussel, the Air Force needed troops and he was transferred. He was sent to radio school at Scott Field, Illinois [Annotator’s Note: now Scott Air Force Base, St. Clair County, Illinois]. He had never flown in a plane before and was taken on orientation flights in Piper Cubs [Annotator’s Note: Piper J-3 Cub] – he loved it. Radio training was tough due to how the shifts were assigned and he often had to do night shifts. He made some very good friends there. He had experienced racism and anti-Semitism in Memphis, Tennessee growing up. In St. Louis, Missouri, a lot of the local population were strongly in favor of Germany in the war. He was downtown once and he saw a sign at a swimming pool that read, “No Jews or Negroes Allowed” and he wondered if that was ever going to change. He wondered what we were fighting for if we were going to be racist and anti-Semitic that way in our own country. Back in Memphis, his family grocery store sold eggs cheap and some guys his age would by them to throw at black people. Bussel is Jewish and had some trouble with that in high school. In the military, he would often have to speak up because his name is not very Jewish sounding, which likely helped him later when he was captured by the Germans. Many men dropped out of radio school because they could not handle the constant sound of Morse Code in their ears. Bussel says the mechanics part was the hardest for him as you had to know how take the radio apart and put it back together. Operating the equipment itself was no problem.

After leaving Scott Field [Annotator’s Note: now Scott Air Force Base, St. Clair County, Illinois], Norman Bussel was headed for gunnery school in Laredo, Texas. The 1943 Baseball World Series was being played in St. Louis, Missouri, and Bussel won a free ticket to the Series. He was really looking forward to going, but he got his orders to Laredo and had to give up his ticket. The troops would receive only one pass to go to Mexico while in Texas. He really liked Mexico and a lot, and he was complaining about not being able to go back when one of the sergeants heard him. The sergeant told him he could wear one of his uniform shirts and go as him but if he got caught the sergeant would not cover for him. Bussel used his shirts to make several trips–he could not resist it despite the fear of court-martial. Despite having graduated from radio school, Bussel was assigned to training as a ball turret gunner. When crews were formed, his name was called as the ball turret specialist. He informed the pilot that he was also the radio specialist. The pilot then got another gunner, Joe Guida [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Joseph Guida], to be the ball turret gunner instead. Bussel had never fired a shotgun before and he was taking a beating in gunnery school. He flew missions shooting at targets in AT-6s [Annotator’s Note: North American T-6 Texan; AT-6: USAAF; SNJ: USN; Harvard: British Commonwealth]. The pilots of these were recent graduates from flight training and were annoyed that they were not in combat and would play around in flight. The pilots would tap each other’s wings and Bussel did not like that. One day when they were all flying back to base, two pilots were playing a trick on another, when they hit and locked wings. Two pilots and one gunner died in the crashes. The General in charge insured that the horseplay stopped after that. The other pilots were so shaken up they had trouble making their landings that day.

After gunnery school Norman Bussel went back home on furlough. It was strange for him as he felt he would go and enjoy time with his buddies, but they were not there. The town seemed strange and subdued and he felt he was just marking time. Before he left town, he went to dinner at his grandmother’s house with the whole family. Bussel and his uncle took a walk. He told the uncle that he was anxious about going overseas and that he had a premonition–if they heard that he was killed in action, he would be, but if they heard that he was missing, it would mean he was coming back. This shocked his uncle – the two of them were very close – he hugged him and told him he expected him to come back. Back when Bussel was building B-25s [Annotator’s Note: North American B-25 Mitchell] before being drafted, he had some reservations about some of the work that made it through inspection. He was sent to Florida to a B-25 training base and felt that the chickens were coming home to roost in that he was going to have to fly a plane that he built. He met two pilots right away and he heard a pilot say that the last B-25 leaving the base just flew over. That is when he found out that he would flying on B-17s [Annotator’s Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress] which made him very happy.

Norman Bussel went to Florida to be assigned to a B-17 [Annotator’s Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress] crew. The pilot was Edgar Farrell [Annotator’s Note: Second Lieutenant Edgar Farrell] who they secretly called Daddy due to his age. Copilot John Benedict [Annotator’s Note: Second Lieutenant John Benedict] had been in the service for six or seven years and Bussel never liked him as Benedict wanted to gas the enemy which did not seem humane to him. Benedict was also racist and anti-Semitic. Wynne Longetieg [Annotator’s Note: Second Lieutenant Wynne Longetieg, bombardier] had just gotten married and they did not see him much. Sherwood Landis [Annotator’s Note: Flight Officer Sherwood Landis] had just graduated from college and was the navigator. The crew would rent two convertibles every weekend and go into West Palm Beach, Florida. [Annotator’s Note: they break for cough medicine]. Bill Peters [Annotator’s Note: Staff Sergeant William Peters, top turret gunner] was a short man who had blazing red hair. They were issued .45 pistols before going overseas. Bill Peters sent his pistol home. He later told his superiors he had lost it, so they gave him another. Merle Rumbaugh [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Merle Rumbaugh, left waist gunner] was a happy-go-lucky kid who was seriously wounded on their final mission and he was never the same guy. Waide Fulton [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Waide Fulton, right waist gunner] was the armory gunner and in charge of repairing the guns as well as kicking out any stuck bombs. Little Joe Guida [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Joseph Guida] was a very quiet guy whose parents had died. He wrote letters to his sister every day. He was the ball turret gunner. If the power went out, the ball turret had to be cranked with a handle and the oxygen would go out from time to time as well. Their original tail gunner did not mesh well with them. [Annotator’s Note: He tells of a prank they pulled on that gunner]. After a bit, the pilot sensed they weren’t getting along, so he got them another tail gunner–Bill Mpourles [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Vasilios Mpourles] whom they liked a lot

Norman Bussel had a crew member, Red [Annotator’s Note: Staff Sergeant William Peters, top turret gunner], that was not a trusting soul. One day an instructor went over each gunnery position. Red had the top turret which was an electrically generated two-gun turret and shot towards the sides and the rear of the aircraft. The instructor told Red that when the gun moved a few inches towards the tail of the aircraft, it would automatically cut-off and then turn back on when it got past the tail. Bussel could see that Red was dubious about that and told him if it were him, he would just stop shooting when nearing the vertical stabilizer and then start again just in case. They went on a training mission and when Red opened up on a tow target, Bussel heard a loud noise, the plane bounced around sky, and Bussel could see a big hole in the vertical stabilizer. Red had tried out the gun theory and it did not work. When they landed the pilot said to just walk away and not say anything about it. Later that evening after dinner, they were playing cards and some military intelligence officers came in and ordered them to the commandant’s office. They were reprimanded and told to never leave a damaged plane on the ramp again. It was very hot where they trained in Florida, so the pilot would get beer and put it in the aircraft’s radio room. It would get very cold when they reach higher altitudes. Bussel would then radio the crew to come get a beer. After a short time on one mission, Bussel noticed the entire crew was there, including the pilot and copilot. He asked who was flying the plane. The pilot took him up the cockpit and showed him there was no one there. Bussel told him he could not have any more beer as someone needed to fly the plane.

Norman Bussel’s pilot wanted him and the engineer, [Annotator’s Note: Staff Sergeant William Peters, top turret gunner] Red, to learn to fly the aircraft in case something happened to him and the copilot. They were training in Florida and the pilot had Bussel follow the railroad track which was far more difficult than he thought. They would fly training missions over the ocean, and they would tow targets for each other to practice firing at. They would also do bombing practice on floating targets. He enjoyed the training. Bussel and the crew assumed they were going to Europe due to being on the B-17s [Annotator’s Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress]. One night, Bussel went alone to a nightclub where there was a fortune-teller and striptease dancers. Bussel stopped after the show to have coffee. The restaurant was very crowded, so he sat at the counter and then saw one of the dancers sitting in a booth nearby. A soldier walked over and asked to join the dancer. The woman said no to him. Bussel got angry because she and her friend were taking up a needed booth. He went over and told them that they were not being very hospitable to men who were about to go to war. The woman said she was sorry and asked him to join them. She then invited him to her place to have breakfast. After that, whenever he came into West Palm Beach, Florida they would meet. He was happy to have a girlfriend. He skipped a class to tell her goodbye before going overseas and she gave him a package. She had given him one of her bras for a good luck piece. He hung it over the radio table on every flight.

Norman Bussel left his final training base and took a train to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. He and the crew were pretty much on edge there. Bussel had two barracks bags of his belongings that he could not leave behind. He went for beers with a crew member and when he returned the rest of his crew had tossed out half of his things. He went across the Atlantic Ocean on the RMS Queen Elizabeth. He saw the Statue of Liberty for the first time as they pulled out of the harbor, but he had no particular feelings about seeing it. Sergeant Joe Louis, the champion boxer, was on the ship and put on some boxing matches for them. Bussel liked him very much. You could not feel that you were on the water, because the ship was so big. Meals were called out by color-coded cards that they were given. One day, Red [Annotator’s Note: Staff Sergeant William Peters, top turret gunner] told him they should go to lunch. Red had cards for every time slot so from then they ate whenever they wanted. Bussel worried about U-boats [Annotator’s Note: U-Boot, Unterseeboot, German for submarine; specifically, German military submarines in English] because they were not in a convoy. There was only a 30-caliber gun on the top deck. He went topside once, and the ship’s engine stopped. They had spotted a German submarine, so they did not want to make noise. The ship would then coast until they were even with the sub, turn the engines back on and outdistance them.

Norman Bussel arrived in Glasgow, Scotland and were greeted by a bagpipe band. The Red Cross had coffee and donuts but charged them for it which he thought was unfair to the soldiers. He stayed in Glasgow overnight and then took a train to Rattlesden, Suffolk, England. The base there was comprised of Nissen huts [Annotator’s Note: prefabricated steel structure designed in World War One by Major Peter Norman Nissen] that had a stove in the middle and housed about 15 to 20 men. His hut was new, and the stove was missing parts. It was January 1944 and it was very cold. Red [Annotator’s Note: Staff Sergeant William Peters, top turret gunner] said he would take care of not having heat. He sent Bussel to get some tools and meet him back there. Red went to huts that had not been occupied yet and stole the parts they needed for their stove. They trained for three months around the base, flying practice missions. Bussel’s job was to get all of the radio equipment on board and check it all out. He had to be careful about how he communicated in Morse Code, due to how quickly the responses would come back. Bussel could send code faster than he could translate receiving it, and had to learn to slow down. The crew was allowed to go off base to local pubs. The warm beer surprised them, but they got used to drinking it. Alcohol was rationed and you could only get a shot every twenty minutes. He was assigned to the 447th Bombardment Group, 708th Bombardment Squadron.

Norman Bussel’s first mission was with an older, experienced crew. Lieutenant Hughes was the pilot and the crew were nearing their last mission. Bussel got to know Roger Hess from North Carolina and they became good friends. His second mission was with this same crew to Friedrichshafen, Germany on the Swiss border. This was a 14-hour mission and very tiring. It was not very dangerous as they were not fired on much. Bussel received a pint of Scotch and a leave pass to London, England upon returning. He was exhausted though so he had dinner and went to bed. The next morning a sergeant came in and called out Bussel’s name for a mission. He had to fly because everyone was flying that day which sounded very ominous to him. Breakfast was always very good because it might be your last one. In the briefing room, he was shown the map and they were told their mission was to be Berlin, Germany.

Norman Bussel’s first mission was to Brunswick (Braunschweig), Germany. He was anxious as he had no idea what to expect. Flak looked so innocuous, but it was ominous. They did not get hit and came back safely. Back in England, he was doing radio training in small hut when there was a huge concussion. They thought they were being bombed. They got up and found out that one of the bombs being loaded on a B-17 [Annotator’s Note: Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress] had exploded. A friend of Bussel’s had wanted to see how to load bombs and was with the crew during the explosion and was killed. This was a rude awakening for Bussel as to how dangerous the job was, and that life could end very quickly. Several planes crashed at the base during take-offs and landings too. Bussel looked around the plane on his first mission and saw a crew member reading a Bible. Another crew member told him there are no milk runs-every flight is a dangerous flight. On 29 April 1944 they were in a briefing room and most of the men were talking and joking around before learning of their mission. After learning it was to be Berlin, Germany, people started talking in whispers and became very grave. Berlin was one of the best protected cities in Germany so the resistance would be heavy and dangerous. From the time he came overseas, Bussel thought about being captured. His religion had been inadvertently left off of his dog tags at first. When he got to England, he got new ones and saw that they had H stamped on them for Hebrew. This angered Bussel because the Germans would know it meant he was Jewish. He made a plan then to get rid of his dog tags if he had to bail out of his plane. Bussel’s crew navigator, Sherry [Annotator’s Note: Flight Officer Sherwood Landis], had a friend who had been killed on a previous mission and Sherry was nervous. Sherry gasped when Bussel gave him his radio set as the set had the initials of that friend. Sherry was very shaken up. Bussel gave him another set and helped him onto the plane. That was the last time he ever saw him. The pilot asked for instructions to form up from Sherry, but Sherry could not speak intelligibly. Bussel translated to the pilot for him and that was the last time he ever spoke with him. Their aircraft was ahead of the other planes, so the tower ordered them to make a 360-degree circle to let the other aircraft catch-up. It did not work out and they ended up flying alone behind the rest of the formation and with no air cover.

Norman Bussel and his crew were headed towards Berlin, Germany on 29 April 1944 on a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. Crossing the English Channel, Little Joe [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Joseph Guida, ball turret gunner] came in and sat on his parachute. Bussel asked Joe not to do that and Joe said they would not be needing it. Joe then threw the chute across the radio room and it landed right in front of the door to the bomb bay. Joe left after that and got into the ball turret. Bussel never saw Little Joe again after that. An hour later Bussel would be glad he had thrown the chute there because he would not have had it when needed if he had not done so. They were close to the initial point where the bombardier takes over the ship on the bombing run. They had already been hit by flak when enemy fighters appeared. Bussel got on his gun and the aircraft was hit by flak where he had been sitting. He was hit and lost his microphone. He did not feel that he was mortally wounded, put the mic back on and told them he was okay. He got back on his gun, but he did not hear anymore conversation. An oxygen tank exploded, causing a fire. His brain was affected quickly by the lack of oxygen, and he was just doing things automatically. He continued shooting at the enemy planes when they were hit again. He could see the skin of his plane melting and dripping. The lack of oxygen made him very calm. He realized his ammo was cooking off from the high heat. He decided to see if he could help anyone. He could only see flames but heard no order to bail out and the plane was still flying smoothly. Everyone had bailed out, but Bussel had not heard the order. There were only four members still onboard–all dead. He opened the bomb bay door and saw the bombs were gone. He also saw that the wing was engulfed in flames. He knew he could not make it to the cockpit. His clothes were on fire, he was burned and wounded, so he decided to bail out. He only hooked one side of his chute in because he was suffering from lack of oxygen. He jumped out facing upward. Seven seconds later the plane exploded. He pulled his ripcord and the unhooked side of the chute flew up and hit him, knocking him out. He awoke in heavy mist and could not see anything – he thought he was dead. His face really hurt due to the burns, so he realized he was alive. He then took his dog tags off and threw them away because they were stamped with his religion which was Hebrew. He did not want the Germans to see that.

Norman Bussel had to bail out of his B-17 over Berlin, Germany on 29 April 1944. He had been struck by shrapnel in the head, arm, side, and knee from anti-aircraft flak. They had been at around 28,000 feet when hit and he bailed out around 23,000 feet. You can only survive with oxygen for a short time at that altitude, so everything had to have happened quickly. It seemed to take forever though. He was falling on his back before his chute opened, when the plane exploded above him–just seven seconds after he got out. He had seen the aircraft melting before he jumped. He was very calm, which he attributes to the lack of oxygen. He had thrown away his dog tags because they identified him as a Jew. He thought he would hit some power lines and he pulled on the lines to turn the parachute, but it sped him up and he hit the ground pretty hard. He had shrapnel in his kneecap, and he landed on that knee. He was jerked to his feet by three women and two men who started beating him with hoes and rakes and yelling at him. One of the men got some rope and took him to a tree to try and lynch him. It was hard for him to think. As the civilians were pulling him up the tree, a German soldier came and took him from them. He could understand some German and he heard the German say that if he had a gun, they could hang him. He did not have a gun. Even though he was the German’s prisoner he was holding onto him for dear life when they roared off on a motorcycle. Bussel was taken to a small building with one officer who could not speak much English. An old man came in to interrogate him who could only say two words of English. He was then put on a truck and taken to a large building. He could see his surviving crew members coming down the road. One of the waist gunners had lost an eye and the other gunner was bleeding badly. They were all put into a three-cell jail and the two most wounded were placed onto wooden cots. They received no medical treatment other than what the crew members could provide.

Norman Bussel had to bail out of his B-17 over Berlin, Germany on 29 April 1944. He was captured and interrogated by a German officer. Bussel was somewhat anxious but knew he would be turned over to someone else. Even though the interrogator could not speak much English, he was able to demonstrate his dislike for the Russians [Annotator’s Note: Bussel describes this is in detail]. While there the Germans were searching him. Most of his clothing had burned off but his escape kit was intact, and they took it from him. The officer found the heating wires in his flight suit and started pulling them out which further tattered Bussel’s clothing. He was delighted when the surviving members of his crew showed up. The pilot was carrying Rumbaugh [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Merle Rumbaugh, left waist gunner] who was hurt and Red [Annotator’s Note: Staff Sergeant William Peters, top turret gunner] was helping Waide [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Waide Fulton, right waist gunner]. That evening they were given a half a slice of bread and coffee. They did not eat the bread but then they got nothing else to eat later. They were put into very small cells with no lights or windows at the interrogation center. The beds were wooden with no mattresses. He could touch both walls of the cell by stretching out his arms. He became very claustrophobic and was terrified that the walls were closing in. At lunch they would get dehydrated cabbage soup which was like getting a laxative. The only bathroom was a latrine at the end of the halls and had not toilet paper or soap. This center was in Frankfurt, Germany and he was there for around ten days. He had never experienced claustrophobia before. He was called in to be interrogated by an officer who said he had lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and spoke perfect English. There were cigarettes, two shot glasses, and a bottle of whiskey on the table. The officer asked Bussel if he would like a drink–he desperately wanted one but refused both the drink and a cigarette. Bussel would not give him more than name, rank, and serial number. Other than that, it was just all silence. He would occupy his mind by thinking of home. He would have very weird dreams. He heard some tapping in Morse Code on the wall. It was a fighter pilot who had been shot down. He checked him out pretty thoroughly before really conversing with him thinking he might be a German playing tricks on him. This pilot had been there for some months because he was a colonel.

While in an interrogation center in Frankfurt, Germany, Norman Bussel was not allowed to do anything to pass the time while in solitary confinement. He had received very minor care for his wounds until he was in the main prison camp later. He had a piece of shrapnel in his cheek. A German doctor took a scalpel and tried to cut the piece out of his face without any anesthetic or numbing. He did not get all of it and Bussel had to have it surgically removed later when he returned to the US. He and his entire crew were shipped to different camps at the same time. The officers went to a separate camp from the enlisted men, who went to Stalag Luft IV [Annotator’s Note: Stalag Luft IV (Stammlager Luft IV), Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland]. Rumbaugh was later traded in a prisoner exchange [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Merle Rumbaugh, left waist gunner].

Norman Bussel had to bail out of his Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress over Berlin, Germany. He and 65 other prisoners arrived at Stalag Luft IV in May 1944, [Annotator’s Note: Stalag Luft IV (Stammlager Luft IV), Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland] and were the first to occupy that camp. They were told there was no food for them. They did not get the Red Cross parcels that they were supposed to each month. Their meals were almost nothing and he lost nearly 70 pounds while there. The Germans would say the Red Cross trains had been bombed so there were no deliveries of parcels, but when they were leaving the camp to be moved, they saw the barn was full of the parcels. There were four compounds with ten wooden barracks in the camp. Each barracks had four coal briquettes per day for heat which lasted about an hour. Their container of water would freeze solid overnight. The compound was surrounded by two sets of barbed wire fences and guard towers. A wooden post with a board on the top was called the rail – if you touched it, you could be shot without warning. The men were playing ball once and the ball went under the rail. One of the prisoners told the guard he was just going to get it but when he reached under, the guard shot and killed him. Another time, a P-51 [Annotator’s Note: North American P-51 Mustang] and Me-109 [Annotator’s Note: Messerschmitt Me-109] were in a dogfight over the camp. The P-51 shot the 109 down and the prisoners cheered. The guards opened fire on all of them. There were many reasons you could be shot [Annotator’s Note: he describes them in detail]. At one point, they ordered the Gentiles and the Jews to form two separate lines. Bussel was uncertain as to what to do since they did not know he was Jewish. There was an Anglican minister in the camp who had refused to be swapped for a German prisoner because he felt he needed to serve the men. Bussel asked him what to do. The minister told him not to play to the Germans hand and so Bussel joined up with the Gentiles. During this the Gentiles got really angry about this separation and they refused. The guards gave up on the idea. This had been two days after the attempted assassination of Hitler [Annotator’s Note: Hitler, Adolf, 1889-1945; leader of the Nazi Party; Führer of Germany]. A guard nicknamed Old Joe had become friendly with Bussel. Old Joe told him that the guards decided not to enforce killing the Jews since they were far away from Berlin, Germany and nobody would notice.

Norman Bussel says that one German guard at Stalag Luft IV [Annotator’s Note: Stalag Luft IV (Stammlager Luft IV), Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland], Big Stoop, was a former professional wrestler who liked to try and burst the prisoner’s ear drums by slapping his hands on them. Big Stoop had organized the running of the POWs from Stalag VI [Annotator’s Note: Stalag Luft VI (Stammlager Luft VI), Šilutė, Lithuania] to Stalag IV [Annotator’s Note: Summer 1944 when the Russian offensive threatened Stalag VI], during which they were bayoneted and attacked by dogs. After the war at Camp Kilmer [Annotator’s Note: Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, 1942-2009], the former prisoners of war were asked to write down the names of any guards who had mistreated them. Bussel wrote down Big Stoop’s name and was told it was not necessary. The English had hunted him down and found him already decapitated. He had brutalized many British prisoners. The prisoners had so little to eat, that they would often pass out in the compound. It was June and they all agreed that there was not any use in wasting their own energy picking each other up. Bussel passed out one day and woke up to find his blanket on him. The other prisoners said that another guard they called Old Joe had put his blanket on him. This made Bussel mad because he did not want pity from the Germans. He asked the guard why he did it and was told it was because Bussel looked like his son who was in an American prison camp. After that, Old Joe would drop by small things that made their lives slightly better. He would tell Bussel things he knew. One day another guard took a picture of Old Joe talking to Bussel and Joe was taken away for about ten days. When he returned, they could not talk anywhere other than inside the barracks. After Christmas, they were being shipped out to Nuremberg and were herded onto a cattle car. The conditions were horrible, and they were stopped on the tracks due to an air raid. Old Joe took a key and unlocked the train car door to let them out for air. A German officer pulled his pistol on Joe and told him that if he opened the door for them, he would be killed. One train car was hit by a bomb in the raid. They had not eaten in nearly four days. Later that night, Bussel and Red [Annotator’s Note: Staff Sergeant William Peters, top turret gunner] were at a small window at the end of the boxcar. Old Joe stuck loaves of bread on his bayonet and passed them up through the barbed wire on the window. After they arrived at the new camp in Nuremberg, Germany, Bussel looked over at Old Joe who surreptitiously waved at him. Bussel could not believe he then cried over a German guard. He had not wanted his kindness and yet he could not refuse it. Old Joe kept him from hating all Germans ultimately.

Norman Bussel was a prisoner of war inn Nuremberg [Annotator’s Note: Stalag XIII-D Nürnberg Langwasser; built on former Nazi rally grounds, Nuremberg, Germany]. The guards would test fire their guns into the prison camps occasionally. Bussell was in a room with George Handy who had been shot in the wrist but had received no treatment for it. Handy would think his heart had stopped beating when it had not, and would also only sleep in the day time–wandering around the barracks at night. His PTSD [Annotator’s Note: Post-traumatic stress disorder] was worse after the war. Another man who Bussel had met on an earlier bombing mission, Roger Hess, came in with a new group of prisoners and he was limping. Hess thought Bussel was dead because he had not seen anyone get out of his plane. Hess was the only man who made it out of his aircraft when it was shot down. Hess had been stuck in the tail of plane and injured his back getting out. Hess stayed in the Air Force and retired but suffered immensely from survivor’s guilt and would never fly on an airplane again.

While in prison in Nuremberg, Germany, Norman Bussel would get information from the outside from a crystal radio a person had gotten by bribing a German guard with cigarettes. They moved the radio around constantly and only one person listened to it at a time. The news would be relayed to one delegate from each barracks. It never was discovered. At night, lights would go out around eight o’clock. Being out in the forest, the darkness was palpable for Bussel and reminded him of his solitary confinement when being interrogated when first captured. Bussel said the worst part of camp life was not having any autonomy. There was a constant threat of death there and he was hungry all the time. He did see one prisoner commit suicide by just going over and climbing the fence so the guards would shoot him. He then was left hanging there. Bussel feels that all of them had suicide ideation but never really acted on it.

Norman Bussel was in prison in Stalag Luft IV [Annotator’s Note: Stalag Luft IV (Stammlager Luft IV), Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland] and heard that the Russians were getting closer-he could hear faint rumblings of artillery in the distance. The Germans wanted to keep the prisoners as a bargaining tool. Bussel left the camp on a train going to Nuremberg, Germany [Annotator’s Note: Stalag XIII-D Nürnberg Langwasser; built on former Nazi rally grounds, Nuremberg, Germany]. He knows the other men who had to march had a horrible time [Annotator’s Note: The March, or, The Black March; a series of forced marches by over 80,000 POWs in extreme conditions between January and April 1945; hundreds from Stalag Luft IV died in blizzard conditions], but he feels he would rather have done that than ridden the train. They had no food water for over three days. When they finally got buckets of water, they drank out of them without even looking at the water, which had been discarded washing water. They all suffered greatly from diarrhea after that. They could not even sit down they were so packed in. It took three and a half days to reach Nuremberg. Guys would have bowel movements on themselves and some men died. Once they arrived in Nuremberg the weather was warmer as it was around the end of March 1945. POWs were coming in from all over Germany. He saw black men with filed teeth, but he did not know where they were from. There were Sikhs too. They had nowhere to hide when the Allies would bomb Nuremberg, occasionally hitting the camp. An American colonel raised hell with the Germans and asked to get shovels to be able to dig foxholes. The Germans brought in shovels but before they could get one, a German general came over and said he would kill the first man to pick one up. The American colonel picked one up anyway and started digging. The German left without killing him, but nobody else would dig a foxhole. [Annotator’s Note: He laughs at the story].

Norman Bussel spent Christmas 1944 at Stalag Luft IV [Annotator’s Note: Stalag Luft IV (Stammlager Luft IV), Gross Tychow, Pomerania, now Tychowo, Poland]. They had been saving food for days to have a big meal. Their stomachs were not large enough to eat the food. They went around and sang Christmas carols. It was the first time they were allowed out at night and the lights were on. Bussel is Jewish, but was very moved by the Christian religious service. They also sang some patriotic songs. He was later in Nuremberg [Annotator’s Note: Stalag XIII-D Nürnberg Langwasser; built on former Nazi rally grounds, Nuremberg, Germany] for about three weeks. They were slowly taking the siding off the barracks to burn for heat at night. Their latrine was not very large, and they had to stand in line because everyone had diarrhea from the train ride in from Stalag IV. After leaving Nuremberg and marching to Moosburg, [Annotator’s Note: Stalag VII A (Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager VII-A), Moosburg, Germany] they were on the road when three P-51s [Annotator’s Note: North American P-51 Mustang] flew over them. They returned and strafed all the way down the column as the Germans did not allow any markings that they were prisoners. One external fuel tank was dropped near them and Bussel thought it was a bomb. The march was about 65 miles. Bussel escaped the second day of the march. It had rained all night long. Four buddies wanted him to escape with them. Bussel had not wanted to because it was so close to the end of the war. His feet were badly swollen so he decided to go with them instead of marching more, as they would just lie down and hide. They stayed on the loose for about a week before they were captured by the Hungarian SS [Annotator’s Note: 25th Waffen Grenadier Division, SS Hunyadi (Hungarian), established in 1944, surrendered to US Army in 1945; never formally part of Wehrmacht]. After they had hidden in the ditch they moved along. They stopped at farmhouses to beg for food in exchange for asking the Allies to treat them kindly. They ate raw fatback once because they were so hungry. They arrived at the Autobahn which was very busy. His buddies wanted to cross the road. They found a potato cellar where Bussel wanted to hide and wait for the Allies. The others wanted to cross and after they did some Germans saw them and reported them. The Hungarian SS came and got them. They were scheduled to stand trial but because the Allies were so close, they took them to Moosburg instead. They had earlier been beaten by Hungarian SS troops on the original march from Nuremberg to Moosburg.

Norman Bussel arrived in Moosburg [Annotator’s Note: Stalag VII A (Kriegsgefangenen-Mannschafts-Stammlager VII-A), Moosburg, Germany] and found that this prison contained every Allied prisoner of war that was left–all nationalities. Food was scarce as usual. After a few weeks, a Piper Cub [Annotator’s Note: Piper J-3 Cub] artillery spotting plane flew over and waggled its wings. Bussel was overjoyed and knew liberation was coming. One afternoon they heard tanks and foot soldiers coming up. A tank pulls up and General Patton [Annotator’s Note: General George S. Patton, Jr., Commander, US Seventh Army and US Third Army] got off the tank. [Annotator’s Note: Bussel does not mention it, but Moosburg was liberated exactly one year to the day of Bussel’ Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress being shot down over Berlin] Bussel actually did not like Patton very much because he had slapped a soldier who had burst into tears in a hospital [Annotator’s Note: General Patton slapped two US Army soldiers under his command during the Sicily Campaign, 3 and 10 August 1943. He did not believe in shell shock and these men had been hospitalized for it.; word reached General Eisenhower who ordered Patton to apologize]. He changed his mind when he showed up at the gate with two pearl-handled pistols he had received from Dinah Shore [Annotator’s Note: Fannye Rose Shore, 1916-1994, American singer, actress, television personality; top-charting female singer of 1940s] on his waist. At that moment, Bussel forgave him. Food was brought in even though they could not eat very much. English guards were put on the gate to keep the prisoners in because they were so sick. Another soldier gave Bussel some wire cutters so they could get out at night. They used them, got out after midnight and passed the cutters to the other compounds. Everyone who could was out walking around the next day. The Russian soldiers showed them a wine cellar they had found. The Russians had opened all the barrels which flooded the basement to knee-depth. They were handing wine out to the former prisoners. Bussel got too drunk immediately due to his malnourished condition, so he found a house and went into the attic to sleep. American soldiers came in to find some SS troops [Annotator’s Note: Schutzstaffel-German paramilitary organization; likely the Waffen-SS (Armed SS)] hiding in there and found Bussel as well. They gave him hell because he did not have a uniform and could have been mistaken as German. The next night he went out of the camp again and was stopped by a guard who told him he might get shot if stayed out. He had him come into sleep there. About an hour later there were shots being fired by another soldier who had woke up and started shooting randomly.

Norman Bussel was wandering around Moosburg, Germany after being liberated. He stayed with soldiers who were driving some gas tankers. He had a bath and spent the night in the apartment they had taken over. The German woman who owned the house came to get some perfume she had left there. They chased her off and then her husband came back–he was kicked off the porch. Bussel did not have a gun. Some of Patton’s [Annotator’s Note: General George S. Patton, Jr., Commander, US Seventh Army and US Third Army] soldiers offered to take him down to the front to get some souvenirs. He took a barracks bag and he and his friends each got German rifles. They then took over an apartment house for themselves. He was concerned German soldiers might be hiding in the basement, so he had the German owner take him down to search it. As the owner went to unlock a door, Bussel cocked his gun. The owner asked him not to shoot him. Bussel told him that he would not shoot him because American soldiers do not shoot people for no reason. There were all kinds of preserves and jellies there and they loved it. He stayed there about four or five days and then went to Camp Lucky Strike [Annotator’s Note: Cigarette Camp, temporary staging camp; Lucky Strike between Cany and Saint-Valery, France]. He flew there on a small plane. It was the first he had been on a plane in 13 months. He was so nervous he said if he landed safely, he would never fly again. He did not for 20 years. [Annotator’s Note: Bussel gets very quiet describing this].

The people running Camp Lucky Strike [Annotator’s Note: Cigarette Camp, temporary staging camp; Lucky Strike between Cany and Saint-Valery, France] fed Norman Bussel and the other former prisoners too much as they did not know how to feed men who had been starving. They got deloused, received clean clothes and more. He stayed there for two weeks and then went on a Liberty Ship [Annotator’s Note: Class of cargo ship] for 18 days at sea. The Statue of Liberty took on a different meaning to Bussel as he came into New York harbor. Everyone was crying because they knew they were home. He went to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. His aunt and uncle came to visit him there as his uncle was in the US Navy and stationed in New York. His aunts were barely older than him, so they were more like siblings. They were under quarantine, but the relatives got in somehow and it was wonderful to see them. [Annotator’s Note: He discusses his nephew’s life]. He was only at Kilmer for a couple of days before going home to Memphis, Tennessee. He had very strange feeling approaching home after everything he had gone through. He was on a 30-day furlough and then that was extended to 90-days.

Norman Bussel arrived in Memphis, Tennessee and took a taxi to his house. All of his family was there for a big reunion. There was a big feast and they were disappointed that he could not eat much due to recovering from his malnutrition. His sister was about to throw some leftover food away and he barked at her to not do so. She told him years later that it had made her truly understand what he had gone through and she went into her room and cried. His family did not really ask about the war and he did not offer up anything. He later went to the US Army hospital to get the shrapnel out of his face. A nurse came in with a gurney to talk him to the operating room. They put him on the operating table, and he heard another doctor say they were doing an appendectomy. He jumped up off the operating table and ran down the hall with nurses and doctors chasing him. He burst into the head of the hospital’s office and told him they were going to take his appendix out. The Colonel then chewed out the staff. Bussel tried to control his laughter over the incident while going back to the operating room. The records had been accidentally switched at the end of his bed.

Once home, Norman Bussel had trouble adjusting. Any sort of noise would set him off. A man slammed the trunk of a taxi shut and Bussel dove for cover. Memphis was a town without bars, but you could buy liquor. He immediately went and bought a pint of liquor and drank the entire thing. He would feel very claustrophobic in the movies, on streetcars, or buses and would have to leave. With Post-traumatic stress disorder, you live a life of rage. He was driving once, and he pulled up to a corner and was cut off by bus. Bussel yelled at the driver and he laughed at him. He pulled the driver out of the bus and a policeman came over. Bussel was in uniform so the cop let him go. He would time his visits to restaurants at off times so he could get out before it got crowded. He would self-medicate with alcohol. Sherry’s [Annotator’s Note: Bussel’s Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress Flight Officer Sherwood Landis] sister told him that she did not know how six of them got out of their plane alive and left four to die. This was when Bussel realized he had survivor’s guilt that was devasting him. He said from then on, he would drink alcohol every day. He had a lot of money from back pay and he drank it all away.

Norman Bussel was awaiting discharge and went to physical rehabilitation in Miami, Florida. He was then sent to Blytheville, Arkansas until his discharge. He was put in charge of the other men, so his duties were light. One day a lieutenant came in and asked Bussel if he could assist him motivating some German prisoners to do their work quickly. He was given a pistol and taken over to them. Bussel waits until all of the prisoners are together, he speaks to them in German and lines them up beside the building. He tells them of his own prisoner experience and that he does not like them at all. He told them that if they moved quickly and got their work done, he would not shoot each one of them in the center of their foreheads. He asked if they understood and they started running to get it done. The lieutenant came by, saw it, and asked Bussel what he had done. Bussel said that he just motivated him. The lieutenant asked one of the Germans who could speak some English to explain which he did. The lieutenant then took Bussel back to the office and never asked for his help again.

Norman Bussel knew he was not going to be very good company if he did not have some alcohol to drink. He would have to drink at any social event he attended, and he could not have just one drink. A couple of friends who had served with him all drank. His parents did not really know this. He did not try to cope with anything and was in a constant state of turmoil. He would overreact to any slight. He went to work for his dad because he could not work for anyone else. Nothing interested him really other than writing. On the ship back from Europe, he had thought he would buy a house and write his memoir. He had enough money to buy a house outright, but fate stepped in and he did not do it. He had a constant need to be busy to keep from reliving the past. He needed to be distracted. Alcohol is a depressant too and it compounds the problems. His friends were getting married and he thought he should too. He had many nightmares that would wake him, and he would need to drink. He was a functioning alcohol though and could always get up and go to work. Later when he had children, he did not see them much and he feels he lost a lot of time with them due to that. He felt he was too broken to take advantage of the new prosperity of the country.

Even now not a day goes by that Norman Bussel does not think of the four of crew members who were killed when their Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress was shot down. They did not get to have life. He feels he must live his life in their honor. When his prisoner of war therapy group broke up, Bussel began weekly private therapy sessions. When his second wife, Melanie and he got together, she was interested in him in ways that his first wife had not been. [Annotator’s Note: He gets very quiet]. He had been Melanie’s boss and it was not easy–for four years he was worried about anyone from his company seeing them together. Melanie had seen an article about POWs meeting together and that is how he first joined the group. Many wives would be astonished at the meetings due to hearing their husbands’ stories for the first time. Bussel feels it helps them all greatly. He helps veterans file claims with the Veteran’s Administration for their own Post-traumatic stress disorder. The younger generation from Iraq and Afghanistan are able to go back to school and get a new life. Bussel finds this gratifying to both him and his deceased buddies. [Annotator’s Note: He gets very quiet].

Norman Bussel quit drinking 42 years ago and he still misses a drink. He knew he needed to quit. His wife’s uncle also drank quite a bit and he went to dinner with them once. He had a beer with lunch and then a drink with dinner and felt sick. After that, he just stopped cold turkey. His son was an alcoholic for over 20 years. His children had never seen him drunk. His son told him it had nothing to do with him. His son was kicked out of college twice during this time and always regretted it. The son did go back to school at night later in life and got his degree at 62 years old–Phi Betta Kappa. Bussel says his therapist told him that he taught him everything he knows about POWs and treatment. Bussel was living in the city on the 25th anniversary of his being shot down. He was feeling sorry for himself and was drinking heavily. He got to thinking about the 59th Street bridge nearby. He walked over and got up on the railing and sat there looking at the water. Melanie came up behind him and pulled him off the bridge. He has no idea how she knew he was there. After that, he realized he would not be killing himself, it would be a delayed reaction to a Nazi trying to kill him. He uses this realization with the younger generation of returning veterans who have attempted suicide–do not let the enemy kill you at home by taking your own life. This work is very fulfilling for him. He once even got a large pay reward for a Vietnam veteran who had exposure to Agent Orange. He also sees people who are worse off than he is.

Norman Bussel advises anybody going into the service to really think about it. It is not a pastime or a hobby or a someplace to go if nothing else works. He feels the draft produces a better group of soldiers. One needs to have a purpose to join. His former waist gunner had a grandson who did not do well in college and was told to join the service. He advised him not to do so just for that reason. Women and men both are suffering from MST [Annotator’s Note: Military Sexual Trauma] in great numbers. There are also many drug addicts, and all of this makes Bussel very sad. He did not get to see many of his former crew members after the war, due to where they all lived. His pilot came to see him in New York City, and he saw Rumbaugh [Annotator’s Note: Sergeant Merle Rumbaugh, left waist gunner] a couple of times. He would see others who lived nearby more often. They have all died since. Many of them were in the same condition with Post-traumatic stress disorder as Bussel. George Hamby became a janitor at a nearby school because he became agoraphobic. Bussel tried to get help for him for he just could not make the trip. Bussel intervened and got the VA to go see him instead and got him a disability claim. Hamby had been given a really good job but could not continue because it was a high security facility and it reminded him too much of the prison camp. He feels that the Vietnam veterans really got the short end of the stick.

Twenty-two suicides per day is a tough issue now for veterans, and Norman Bussel thinks the Veterans Administration needs to be more proactive in the issue. He tries to spend 29 April at home every year [Annotator’s Note: the anniversary of the day he was shot down over Berlin, Germany as well as the day he was liberated from his prison camp]. He just spends the day thinking of the crew and talks to the children of some of them. Today his moods often change without him noticing. He had road rage for quite some time and he still has to control it. Having post-traumatic stress disorder is having a life of trying to control rage. He was in an apartment in New York on July 4th and someone lit a firecracker in the stairwell. He took a butcher knife and headed downstairs, but the person was gone – lucky for the both of them. He still has nightmares from the war from time to time. [Annotator’s Note: His wife reaches in and rubs his face]. He was in the air museum in Dayton, Ohio and he was going through FDR’s [Annotator’s Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the US from 1933-1945] plane and a group of people were not getting off–he started getting claustrophobic. He walked toward them quickly which caused them to move. [Annotator’s Note: His wife says off-camera that the wives suffer the PTSD as well]. His wife would not let him read the book, Unbroken [Annotator’s Note: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand, 2010]. He did watch Schindler’s List [Annotator’s Note: film by Steven Spielberg, 1993] and it did bother him. He cannot believe how close we are getting with the Russians these days and he speaks of Raoul Wallenberg [Annotator’s Note: Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, Swedish architect, businessman, diplomat, humanitarian, saved Jews in Hungary during WWII; detained by Red Army, 17 January 1945 and disappeared; reported dead 17 July 1947 in Soviet custody]. Saving Private Ryan [Annotator’s Note: film directed by Steven Spielberg, 1998] did not bother him much. He has visited the Memphis Belle many times. He sometimes would wake up in the middle of the night and have to drink. One night he thought about the Memphis Belle [Annotator’s Note: Boeing B-17F Flying Fortress]. He took a bottle with him and he went over and went in the back hatch. He sat in the cockpit and fell asleep. He dreamed of being in combat, but it was calming overall, so he would do that quite often. It was not his plane, but it was a B-17.